


Be Gay; Solve Crime

by phonecallfromgod



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Season 2, implied/mentioned sex, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 01:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16903776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phonecallfromgod/pseuds/phonecallfromgod
Summary: The struggle between being professional documentarians and being very in love is extremely real for Sam and Peter, thank god for the power of editing.Or; Eight moments salvaged from the cutting room floor of the Netflix cut of season two.





	Be Gay; Solve Crime

2.1. 

Chloe’s about seventy percent sure before she meets Sam and Peter in person that they’re a thing, and after only one afternoon of hanging out with them in person she’s probably closer to ninety percent sure. But like...that’s not exactly something she can come right out and ask them, and not just because they’re both guys. Like sure, obviously she cares about not forcibly outing them or putting them in a position where they have to tell her before they’re ready, but on top of that it just seems like generally overstepping with people she just met. 

They’ve all gotten along fine in the two days Sam and Peter have been in Bellevue, but even with Chloe having spent the last few weeks emailing back and forth almost daily with Peter, there’s a huge difference between being friendly with someone over email and being friends in real life. When they’d run over to Target to grab Sam and Peter some odds and ends they’d had a nice enough time, but there was just this haze of lingering awkwardness. Sam and Peter are so close, ping-ponging back and forth with conversations that are mostly inside jokes, half-finished sentences and knowing glances, and Chloe can’t quite find a foothold in their dynamic. 

Chloe really wishes she had someone to talk about it with, but Kevin’s never been great with these kind of interpersonal dilemas, even at the best of times. This is normally the sort of thing she talks to Tanner about but, well, she’s not exactly talking to Tanner. 

They have last period AP Comp Gov together and Chloe can practically feel Tanner’s puppy dog eyes from behind her the entire class. He’s given up trying to talk to her in person, and he hasn’t texted her in at least two weeks even though they technically have a project they’re working on together. Thank god for Google slides, Chloe supposes as she passive aggressively takes out all of Tanner’s Oxford commas.

She’s promised to bring Peter and Sam to campus after school today, so she has the perfect excuse to dash out of the room right at the bell. She’s in such a hurry that she almost slams right into Suzanne, who’s talking to Tori Carucci in front of their adjoining lockers, but it’s worth it if it means she doesn’t have to deal with any Tanner follow-up under the guise of talking about their project. 

Chloe’s in her car less than ten minutes after the bell, and she pulls out her phone to text Peter, cringing as she eyes over their last few polite stilted exchanges. 

_You still good to go to campus?_

_Ill be home in 15_

She throws her phone onto the passenger seat and flips through her totally authentic 00s CD case before conceding defeat that everything reminds her of Tanner or Kevin or both. 

Chloe thinks, maybe, in a way she should be kind of grateful that Tanner had fucked up so bad and made her choice for her. Those two days between skip day she’d had a constant knot in her stomach over what she and Tanner making out had meant for the three of them. But then Tanner had gone to the cops and while Chloe had a lot of other problems arise because of it, it had rather neatly dealt with that particular conundrum. 

Speaking of conundrums, Chloe aggressively ignores the stack of college brochures her mom has set out for her on her desk when she goes up to her bedroom to change out of her uniform. On paper her parents are chill with her going to school for music, and they’d never cop to it if she confronted them, but they sure do love leaving her brochures for schools with great pre-law and pre-med programs. Her dad especially has really gotten into reminding her that even an arts degree can be a great stepping stone into an advanced degree. It’s just exhausting. Like Chloe maybe isn’t totally sure what she wants to do with her life yet, but at the very least she knows that the realms of medicine and law are not for her. 

Honestly her parents’ weird acceptance-but-not-really about her wanting to go to college for music is part of why Chloe hasn’t told them she’s bisexual yet. Her parents pride themselves a lot in being open-minded and accepting people, but she can just see them telling her that they’re fine with it only for them to keep dropping hints that maybe she should actually be straight after all. 

That’s also why she feels like she can’t totally trust her initial gut reaction that Sam and Peter might be a thing — her own wishful thinking in the situation is just too much between her parents and her own desire to bond with other gay people. Especially since the only other not-straight person she’s friends with, or was friends with, is Tanner. So that’s not fucking happening right now.

So her current plan of action is to just dress as gay as possible and hope that if Sam and Peter _are_ a thing, that their own gaydars will ping and they’ll confide in her. Which is not the best plan ever, but is not totally unrealistic, right? 

She checks her phone on her way downstairs, and Peter still hasn’t texted her back. She debates sending another text, but it feels a bit silly to text someone who is literally about 50 feet away from her house, so she lets herself out the back door and crosses towards the guest house. She hesitates for a second at the door, debating if she should knock or just let herself in. She has a key and stuff, but maybe it’s totally overstepping to just waltz in. But at the same time knocking seems a bit stupid since it’s _her_ house, technically. She worries her bottom lip between her teeth for a long second before deciding to see if the door is unlocked in the first place, and when it is she takes the plunge and decides to let herself in. 

The front half of the first floor isn’t actually part of the guest house at all, it’s her dad’s workshop and where they keep the riding lawn mower and stuff, so the first floor of the guest house is a long narrow room with an entryway at one end and a kitchen taking up the rest of the space. Up on the second floor there’s three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a big common room. 

When Chloe walks in she spots Peter leaning up against the kitchen island, phone in hand. 

“Hey,” she says brightly, shutting the door softly behind her. 

“Oh hey Chloe,” Peter says. “I was literally just about to text you back.” 

“Ha, no worries,” Chloe says. “You good to go?” 

“Totally. Sam just wanted to change real quick but he should be back down in a few.”

“Cool,” Chloe says, and tries not to notice the immediate drop off as soon as they’ve checked the conversational boxes. She pulls her sleeves over her hands as she rocks back and forth on her heels, looking around the kitchen. It’s still set up pristinely, minus an open box of pop tarts tucked into the corner of the counter beside the toaster, and it’s hard to believe that two teenage boys have been living here for the last few days. 

“You know,” Chloe says. “My mom’s not going to come, like, barging in or anything, you guys can like, spread out a little more.” 

“Oh,” Peter says, sounding almost embarrassed. “My mom’s a real estate agent so she keeps our house really, like, tidy, so I’m just kind of used to it.” 

“Cool, cool, okay,” Chloe says. “Yeah, like if you like it like this, I mean I’m not saying you have to be messy or something…” she trails off. 

She can’t figure out why it’s so hard to talk to Peter in person. They’d emailed back and forth for weeks before he’d arrived, and they’d skype called a couple of times too, but every time she tries to talk to him about something not-documentary related she feels like she’s doing the verbal equivalent of tripping over her own shoelaces. And she can tell Peter can feel her awkwardness which makes him even more awkward which makes Chloe want to desperately fill the silence with chatter and that just makes everything _worse_. 

“Soooooo…” Chloe says, clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth, “how was your day?” That’s safe right? That’s a safe, easy question. 

“Good, pretty chill,” Peter says. “I’m trying to get ahold of the interview footage from the police. They seem mostly cooperative but they’ve been dragging their feet on it a bit.” 

“That sounds annoying.” 

“Eh, comes with the territory. Oh actually, speaking of,” Peter says, “we were having an issue with one of our cameras earlier, would you be able to give me a hand for one sec? I want to check it before we go to campus because if we can get some b-roll on it that would be great.” 

“Totally, what do you need me to do?” 

Peter unpacks the handheld camera from its case. “There’s just been a weird issue with the autofocus, so if you can just, like, move around and I’ll see if it will track you.” 

“Oh sure,” Chloe says, letting Peter direct her around, back a few steps, to the left, way up close to the camera. 

“Shit, yeah, it’s still doing it,” Peter says, annoyed. “Like we can get Angie to meet us on campus, it’s not a big deal, but it’s always better to get more footage so you can edit down.” 

Chloe nods and then checks her watch. “I don’t wanna rush you or anything but a lot of stuff gets locked up at five and it’s already a little after four, soo…” 

“Yeah, hold on, I’ll tell Sam to hurry up,” Peter says, offering her the camera. “Hold onto this for a second?” 

Chloe accepts the camera from Peter, which is heavier that she expects. It’s still recording, even though Chloe figures none of this footage will be usable, and she watches through the viewfinder as Peter goes to the bottom of the stairs and calls up; _“Hey Sam!? Sammy can you hurry up please so we can go to campus!? That’d be great thanks!”_

_“Hey Peter!?”_ Sam calls back, his voice mockingly mirroring Peter’s tone. “ _Pete can you not get cum on my shirt please next time!? That’d be great thanks!”_

There’s a half-second delay in Chloe’s mind, like the lag on a bad connection, before everything snaps abruptly into focus and she realizes what Sam’s just said. Peter whirls around on his heel, his face an almost comically spot-on recreation of the shocked emoji, eyebrows practically at his hairline, mouth a perfect O. 

“Sorry,” Chloe blurts. “Sorry, I’ll just wait outside.” She puts the camera down on the kitchen island, the camera which is _still recording_ and flees the guest house, wiping her palms on her jeans as she paces back and forth on the driveway. She cups her face in her own hands and can feel the heat radiating off of her cheeks. 

Not to sound melodramatic but if a sinkhole wanted to open up in the middle of her driveway and swallow her whole, Chloe would be totally okay with that. 

She’d wanted to figure out if Sam and Peter were a thing, but this was, like, the exact opposite of how she wanted to find out. Also fuck, if she thought things were awkward before…

She stress-braids and then unbraids her hair, and then braids it again by the time Peter comes out of the guest house a few minutes later, Sam on his heels, the two of them giving off an air of forced nonchalance. Chloe had noticed right away when she first met them that Sam and Peter didn’t have a particularly strong grasp on the concept of ‘personal space’ when it came to each other, but now there’s a deliberate gap between them. Leaving room for Jesus. Peter must have told Sam then. Which, god is that better or worse she’s not sure. 

“So, uh, do we wanna take your car?” Sam says. “Or we could take the Santa Fe?” 

“Yeah, no, I can drive,” Chloe says. “Are we waiting for Angie?” 

“Nope, she’s going to meet us on campus.” Peter says. 

“Oh okay, cool, let’s rock n roll then.” _Rock n roll_? Ugh, c’mon Chloe. 

It’s a quiet drive, Sam fiddling with the handheld in the backseat, and getting what Chloe assumes must be some b-roll footage. She’s trying to be okay with the silence, but she can’t shake the feeling that the silence is just building and building, like the pressure in your ears right before they pop, and she can’t help herself from blurting, “I’m bisexual, just like, for the record.” 

She sees Sam’s eyes flick up in the rearview mirror and Peter turns to look at her from the passenger seat, but Chloe just keeps her eyes on the road. “Just so you know, that I’m not like, you know, judging you on any sort of like, hellfire and damnation way. And I totally get it if you’re keeping it on the downlow. Like I _really_ get it.” 

She’s gripping the steering wheel way too hard, but neither Peter nor Sam is _saying_ anything, and she’s starting to really regret saying this in the _car_ where she can’t escape without tucking and rolling. 

“Oh my god,” Sam says finally breaking the silence. “And you go to a fucking Catholic school? You poor kid.” 

It’s so not what Chloe’s expecting that she can’t help but let out a startled bark of a laugh at the sudden deflation of tension. “Yeah, tell me about it. We used to have these textbooks in Middle School that were like ‘it’s normal for straight girls to think they have crushes on other women, but that’s just admiration, you’re not gay.’”

Peter inhales sharply and winces in sympathy. “Yikes.” 

“Yeah, that’s messed up,” Sam says. 

“Also just like, for the record,” Peter says. “We were going to tell you that we’re dating, we were just kind of trying to figure out like— ” 

“ —Yeah like what the best way to do it was,” Sam says overlapping with Peter, which actually might be the most couple-y thing she’s seen them do yet. “We clearly failed on that count, soooo. Sorry.” 

“I mean, look, that was definitely something I didn’t need to know, uh, like ever, but whatever, it happened, we’re moving on with our lives,” Chloe says. “Should I like, keep this on the down low?” 

Peter wiggles his hand. “Like yes and no? Part of why we didn’t want to tell people, or at least not right away, is that this is literally our job that we get paid for and, you know, professionalism. But we don’t have a problem with people knowing, you know, broadly speaking.” 

“Totally,” Chloe agrees. “Also just so we’re all on the same page, you guys are like, a Thing thing right?” 

“Yup,” Sam says. “We’re hashtag boyfriends, hashtag official.” 

“ _Why_ would you put it like that?” Peter says, turning in his seat to look at Sam. 

“Aww, I love you too muffin.” 

“You’re so stupid.” 

“And yet you’re dating me, check and mate,” Sam says, leaning up between the front seats to kiss Peter on the cheek, and something tight that had been sitting in Chloe’s chest unravels a little bit. They might not be best friends forever, but the ice has definitely been broken. 

Or more accurately, the ice has been smashed into a thousand tiny pieces. But hey beggars can’t be choosers Chloe thinks as she pulls into the St. Bernardine student parking lot. 

“Oh shit, you know we’re not going to be able to use like any of this footage,” Peter bemoans. 

2.2. 

While no Sherlock Holmes, Kevin considers himself to be above average at the art of deduction. So he’d made a point to closely observe Sam and Peter’s behaviour together after Chloe had expressed her curiosity that they may be romantically entangled. 

Kevin must admit that he had done some internet research, just out of idle curiosity, but that had quickly taken a turn in some rather explicit fanfiction, he hadn’t really managed to answer any questions. If anything, it just raised more. 

Even their instagram accounts weren’t particularily discernable. Every time Kevin saw a photo he thought could imply that Peter and Sam were more than merely good friends, he’d remember all the photos of himself and Tanner that could slant towards a romantic interpretation if the viewer were so inclined. Though thinking too much about Tanner right now is more or less on par with picking a scab until it bleeds so Kevin shoves that thought down, like a dirty sock in a laundry basket.

He asks Myles for his thoughts on the matter, but Myles hadn’t had much to say other than that his uncles were gay. Kevin was glad that this new generation was so accepting. 

Even after a few days of interviewing with them, despite his careful observation of their behaviour, Kevin feels no closer to cracking this mystery. Partially, he feels, because it’s hard to imagine Peter and Sam dating anyone, let alone each other. When they’re filming they are a tight cohesive professional unit, setting up the backdrop, adjusting lights, Sam taking careful notes which he shows to Peter every so often, the two of them exchanging entire conversations in half finished sentences and hand gestures. 

Which perhaps out of context _sounds_ like it should weigh harder on the side of them maybe being romantically entangled, but in person is so methodical and devoid of anything even remotely sexual. It’s easy to forget that their sound and light guy Michael is actually the only industry professional, and that Sam and Peter are just high school seniors. 

“Hey Kevin?” Peter says, and Kevin is snapped out of his reprieve. He’d been alone with his thoughts for the last several minutes as Peter and Sam had been huddled together over a laptop, pointing at the screen and talking quietly to each other. “We’re just going to go back over this to make sure we’re not missing anything, and then I’d love to get some b-roll, but if you’d like to take a little break you’re more than welcome to.” 

“I believe I will,” Kevin says, and honestly he is quite glad for the opportunity to stretch his legs and retreat down to the kitchen with his tea chest. He’s just setting his cup of White Peony up to steep when his sister Molly wonders into the kitchen. 

She wanders around for a moment, pulling open cupboards before eventually leaning up against the counter, shoulders scrunched up by her eyes for a moment before she smacks her lips and says. “So, um, is Sam still here?” 

Ahhh of course. While he may be no closer to uncovering the true romantic entanglements of Sam and Peter, he is at least perceptive enough to pick up his little sister’s truly adorable puppy crush on one Sam Ecklund. 

“Yes, Sam and Peter are both still here,” Kevin says evenly, bobbing his metal steeper ball in his authentic Japanese stoneware _yunomi_ , a birthday gift from Chloe. “They’re both very busy.”

“I just wanna say hi,” Molly says with a huff, arms crossed tight over her chest. 

Kevin opens his mouth to retort when Sam sticks his head around the entrance to the kitchen, “Hey Kevin, is your sister— Oh hey Molly, I was just looking for you.” 

Molly perks up her entire face brightening, “You were!?” 

“Yeah, we wanted to ask you a few questions if you have a minute,” Sam says, “Confidententially,” he adds when Kevin takes a step towards him. 

“Oh, of course, take your time.” 

“Great, Molly if you’ll come with me,” Sam says gesturing back towards where they’d set up in the living room. Molly is practically bubbling over with excitement as she follows at his heels. Ahhh to be young and naive in love. 

Kevin knows better than that now. 

At exactly five minutes and thirty seconds Kevin pulls his steeper from his _yunomi_ , dumping the leftover leaves into their countertop composter and methodically cleaning and drying his steeper before putting it back in his tea chest. Ever since the Ceremonial Matcha Debacle two years ago, Kevin has been vigilant to keep both his teas and his teawares out of the misguided, if well meaning, hands of his grandmother. 

Kevin checks his pocket watch, and realizing that St. Bernardine’s will have just let out for the day decides it’s about time to catch up on twitter before he gets the influx of after-school posts. Only his phone isn’t in his right pants pocket where he always keeps it, and Kevin realizes with a sigh that he’s left it in the living room. 

He hesitates for a second, blowing on his tea and taking one cautious sip that, even so, burns his mouth ever so slightly. For obvious reasons Sam had requested privacy in their interviewing of Molly, but given that it usually takes a fair few minutes to set up every time they take a break from interviewing, Kevin figures it’s possible they haven’t even started yet. Cautiously he crosses the hall, lingering for a second for the sound of voices, and when he can’t hear either Peter or Molly talking, pokes his head into the sitting room. Michael is over by the backdrop with Molly, getting her micced, and Peter and Sam are behind the desk that Peter had set up on the other side of the room. 

“Sorry all,” Kevin says, “just wanted to grab my phone and then I’ll be right out of your hair.” 

His phone is sitting where he last left it on a small side table, and Kevin puts down his hot tea for a moment so he can slip it into his pocket. Were his grandmother here she would chastise him for not using a coaster, but she’s at water aerobics and Kevin figures what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. 

“So okay, you’re going to be right here in the hot seat,” Sam says to Molly, putting a gentle hand on her arm to guide her, and Kevin can see her melt a little even from across the room. “We’re going to have Peter right behind the camera so you can just look at him as you answer, okay? We’re going to start rolling in a second just to make sure we have some overlap, but don’t worry, we’ll make sure you know when to start properly.” 

“Mhmm,” Molly says, brushing her hands over the front of her sweater. 

“Okay, I’m rolling. Sam can we get those lights adjusted a little?” Peter says. “I’m getting some shadow.” 

“For sure,” Sam says, leaving Molly on the stool. 

Kevin’s about to leave, just hazarding another sip of tea when Sam lets out a cross between a yelp and a hiss. “Ah fuck, fuck, shit,” he curses, shaking his hand and taking a step back from the light he’d been adjusting. “Just burnt my hand. Ow. Fuck.” 

“Baby!” Peter says, entire voice and demeanour morphing from cool detached professionalism to affectionately concerned in a half-second and Kevin can’t help but practically inhale the sip of tea he was taking, spluttering and coughing all over his shirt. Thankfully no one seems to be paying any attention to him, Peter having rushed over to Sam’s side. 

“Do you think you should run them under cold water?” Peter says, inspecting Sam’s fingers gently. 

“I think I’ll be okay, Dr. Maldonado,” Sam says, and then Peter, calm, collected, methodical Peter, brings Sam’s burned fingers to his mouth and kisses them gently. 

“There,” Peter says softly. “All better.” 

“Are we set to roll?” Michael asks, and it’s like this alternate universe that Kevin has slipped into just vanishes and everything snaps back firmly into place, Peter going back behind the camera like nothing at all unusual had happened. 

“We’re actually good for you today, Kevin. Which is good timing, apparently,”

Sam says. 

“Hmm?” 

“Your shirt, if you had to change it would mess up our continuity.” 

Kevin looks down, and it’s true that he’d ended up with far more liquid than he’d realized down the front of his shirt. A few notably large dark patches which would no doubt have appeared vividly on camera. 

“Can you shut the door behind you?” Sam adds, grabbing a pair of headphones and joining Peter behind his work desk. 

“Of course,” Kevin says, trying to keep a straight face as he slides the pocket door shut behind him. 

Alright, so Kevin knew his powers of detection weren’t on par with Sherlock Holmes, but now he’s not sure if he can even consider himself above the skills of Encyclopedia Brown. 

2.3 

So it’s not like Gonzo has been _avoiding_ Peter exactly, he’s just been, you know, opportunistic about not having to sit down and be interviewed ever since Peter had texted him about it earlier that week. Peter finally manages to pin him down on Thursday during lunch practice, and since they’re just running drills Tyler lets him go to the weight room with Peter with not much more than a pointed look. 

Gonzo picks at a loose thread on his sweatpants while Peter helps his visibly pregnant camerawoman, Angie, get set up before coming over to mic him. Gonzo knows that they have another crew person, a guy with a dirty blonde beard who he’s seen around, and then Sam obviously, but neither of them are necessary for this apparently because they start rolling as soon as Peter’s sitting down, a notebook open on his knee. 

“So let's go over what happened at the away game on November 9th,” Peter says, and Gonzo starts running over the story he’s had in his head on a loop ever since he found out Chloe had gone to the school administration about what they saw. 

It doesn’t even feel like lying, and hell, maybe it _isn’t_ even a lie, broadly speaking. Like it was true that Gonzo had thought the card in DeMarcus’ wallet was the Yummy Swirl card, at least at first. And technically, DeMarcus having the card in his wallet doesn’t _actually_ mean that he’s the Turd Burglar. Gonzo watches enough _Law & Order_ to recognize circumstantial evidence when he sees it. 

Still, he doesn’t feel great about the whole situation, even as Peter nods along as he talks, taking down the occasional jot note. He doesn’t interject at all until Gonzo gets to the bit about the Yummy Swirl card. 

“So it doesn’t look anything like this card?” Peter asks, holding up a print off of the Turd Burglar avatar. 

“No, it’s funny because it does look like this,” Gonzo starts, and god did cutting in like that sound super rehearsed? Fuck. “It looks like this, only it’s blue and— ” 

Gonzo stops when he hears the weight room door creak open, Sam’s head peeking through. “Hey, sorry, sorry,” he says, and Peter turns around to look at him. Sam holds up a brown paper takeout bag. “Lunch?” 

“Ah, yes, thank you,” Peter says, climbing off the bench he’d been using as a makeshift workstation and retrieving the bag from Sam. 

“Also, Ang, I know you said you were craving one earlier soo…” Sam says, showing off a takeaway Orange Julius cup with a dramatic flourish. 

“Oh my gosh, Sam!” She says, accepting the cup happily as it’s passed from Sam to Peter who hands it to her. “You are such a freaking angel.” 

“You hear that Peter? I’m an angel,” Sam says jokingly. 

It’s a pretty open secret at this point that Sam and Peter are like...a Thing. Not that Gonzo has any problem with that, it would be super messed up if he did given that his mom remarried a woman when he was ten. Though he’d learned the hard way when Jenna Hawthorne had come out that most gay people don’t love it when you try and be supportive by pointing out that you have two moms. So he hasn’t brought this up with either of them, especially because he’s not totally sure how much they want people to know anyways. 

He expects Peter to roll his eyes or quip back, but instead he just says, “You _are_ an angel,” which makes Sam break out in this dumb dopey grin for a half second, before schooling his features into a more neural expression. 

“Alright, as you were,” Sam says closing the door, and Peter’s eyes linger on the door for a half second even after it shuts. 

“I just kept rolling, so you might want to make a note to cut that,” Angie says. 

“Absolutely,” Peter says, snapping back into interview mode. “Alright, sorry, let's go back to the Yummy Swirl Card.” 

2.4 

“So this tip box is what the student government did, um, you know, when it was kind of desperate for anything, and according to them a lot of these are incredibly unhelpful. But I think that there might be some gems in here, so we’re gonna go through these for the rest of the day; and because of that I have dubbed today Just the Tip Day.” 

“Um, lets do un-useful and useful. We’ll make two piles.” 

“Pete, Peter...d’ya get it? Just the Tip Day?” 

“Yeah, I heard you the first time. Can you please focus?” 

“Oh c’mon, we cut our teeth on dick jokes, don’t be a buzzkill. Embrace Just the Tip Day!” 

“See it’s funny you say that when _you’re_ the one who this morning— ” 

“ —Fuck alright, alright, point made.” 

2.5 

As far as Netflix jobs have gone, Angie has to say that she’s loved American Vandal the most so far. Even if lugging around a camera when you’re in your second trimester isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. But Sam and Peter are always quick to grab her a chair or carry the equipment, which is a lot more than she’d come to expect from her creative teams. 

Plus, there is a certain kind of ego-boosting thrill at being the oldest person on the crew at just twenty-six, Sam and Peter both looking at her for expertise instead of talking down to her for being a young woman in a male-dominated field. Though that could be a double-edged sword in a way. 

“Oh god,” she’d bemoaned to Michael the first time Sam had come to her asking for grown-up advice about college. “They totally see me as an adult guidance figure. They cannot find out how much fucking weed I smoke when I’m not pregnant.” 

But on the other hand, all the high school girls at St. Bernardine’s are always complimenting her on her outfits, which is a huge reassurance when you’re desperately trying to find a new way to wear overalls for the fourth time in one week. Maternity clothes were not made for reformed hipster types, that’s for sure. 

The only real major drawback to working on Vandal is the fact that while Sam and Peter are both incredibly sweet, and for the most part incredibly professional, they’re still two seventeen-year-old dudes with the sex drives of rabbits who are living alone for the first time ever. She’s been lucky so far that her experience with Sam-and-Peter-The-Couple has mostly been the occasional dropped pet name, some flirtatious banter, and a few poorly concealed hickeys, but Michael has a few horror stories. 

Just last week they were all set to pick Sam and Peter up from the Lyman house, when Michael had returned looking like he’d seen a ghost and had put the car in drive, backing out without their teen documentarian cargo. 

“What are you doing?” Angie asked. “I thought we were picking up the guys?” 

“They’re gonna meet us there,” Michael had said stiffly, hands tight on the wheel. 

Angie managed to wheedle out of him eventually that he’d caught Sam and Peter in a fairly compromising position, an excessively athletic compromising position in fact. 

So she knows, on paper anyways, that Peter and Sam are having a totally fulfilling sex life, but Sam and Peter are so PG-13 around her that it’s honestly hard to fully wrap her head around them doing much more than making out. Not that she puts a lot of thought into the sex lives of teenagers, because ew, but she does spend a lot of time with them and they’re just so…chaste? For horny teenage boys anyways

Or that’s what she’d thought until the morning when they go to do their second interview with Mr. Fernandez. 

They’d worked out a system pretty early on that it was best to have Michael in their makeshift campus studio to help with the one-on-one interviews, getting people micced and adjusting the lights, while Peter or Sam ran the stationary camera. That left her free to get b-roll footage or tag along when they wanted to shoot on location. Sam had texted her right before lunch and asked her to meet them at the studio, so she’s leaned up against a wall texting cute alpaca pictures to her husband as she waits for them to wrap with their last interviewee. 

There’s a blonde girl with bangs she recognizes from interview footage leaning on the opposite wall and she gives Angie a smile. “I love your shoes.” 

“Oh ha, thanks,” Angie says looking down at her clear jelly sandals, which were about the only shoes that fit her at the moment, so she’d taken to wearing them with socks in a vague approximation of some kind of reasonable winter footwear. 

The door to the studio opens and a brunette with a short bob walks out. “Oh my god did you wait for me? You didn’t have to,” she says to the blonde, who shrugs. 

“I wanted to, are you good to go…?” 

“Yeah totally,” the brunette says, and they set off down the hall just as Peter slips out of the studio. He is in his signature grey hoodie and a pair of grey track pants. A true iconic Peter Maldonado groutfit. 

“Hey, perfect timing, just give us two shakes Sam is— ” 

“Sam is ready— I’m good,” Sam says appearing behind Peter. 

“Where are we going?” Angie says, squatting down so she can heft the camera onto her shoulder. She feels a bit silly doing it, but at this stage in the game she doesn’t really have another option if she wants to bend over and get back up. 

“We’re gonna go talk to Mr. Fernandez about December fourth,” Peter says. 

“Again?” Angie says, taking a second to regain her balance. “I thought you got shit from him last time. Pun not intended.” 

Peter shrugs. “I want to take another crack at him.” 

“Alright boss,” Angie says. “Let me know when you want me to start rolling.” 

Sam signals for her when they’re about halfway down the mathematics hallway. 

“You wanna take the lead, Pete?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I will,” Peter says, and then drops his voice down to a whisper right outside Fernandez’s door. “Take it slow.” 

“It’s okay, don’t overthink it,” Sam whispers back. 

Peter raps twice on the door before sticking his head in. “Mr. Fernandez? Hey, is it okay if we ask you a few questions?” There’s a short pause and then, “Awesome. Thank you so much.” 

Angie decides to split off because she’s not totally sure she’s going to be able to squeeze between the side row of desks and the wall, less because of the belly and more because of the camera on her shoulder. 

“So um,” Peter starts, “we’re just trying to figure out what exactly took place in the school on December 4th, and, and in speaking with some of the faculty we realized that —And, and, and actually following the Turd Burgular’s Instagram posts you could see that all of the— ” 

“ —Mr Fernandez,” Sam cuts in, interjecting Peter’s rambling tangent. “Did you eat shit?” 

Angie scans across from Peter and Sam to get Fernandez’s reaction, even as her pulse speeds up at such a blatant accusation. Peter’s clearly just as surprised as she is, and she catches his shocked face in the frame, before he turns to Fernandez inquisitively. 

Fernandez turns to her camera for a half-second, before sighing and saying “No, I did not _eat shit_ ,” his voice moving from calm to angry in a half second. Angie winces involuntarily, a knee-jerk reaction to a man angrily raising his voice. 

“I’ve told you now, I’m busy here, guys,” he continues. 

Peter more than takes the hint. “I’m so sorry about that, Sam is just a little — he had a little too much coffee this morning, we didn’t mean to..” 

“I’m busy, guys…” 

“Okay sorry ‘bout that,” Peter says, him and Sam already backing away. 

“ _Get OUT_!” Fernandez finally snaps and Angie finds that actually, baby bump or not she 

can move pretty fast when she wants to. 

“Fuck!” She catches Sam whisper to Peter. “He totally ate shit!” 

She has the camera steady on her shoulder until they’re out of the classroom, and she’s about to signal to Peter to see if he wants her to keep filming, but Peter is already preoccupied, grabbing Sam by the sides of his unzipped hoodie and pushing him up against the wall of the mathematics hallway. 

“That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” Peter says in a breathless rush.

“Wha— ?” Sam starts and doesn’t get any further as Peter kisses him with an intensity and ferocity that Angie has only ever seen him apply to their investigation. Sam makes a noise that is a lot more R-rated than PG-13, grabbing at handfuls of Peter’s sweatshirt. 

Angie doesn’t have to be a mind reader to see where this is going, and she stops filming just a half-second before Sam’s hands end up on Peter’s ass, whirling around on her heel because she really, really, _really_ , does not need to see any more of that. 

“Okay, I’ll catch up with you back at the studio,” Angie says, lowering her camera down to rest on her hip, and giving them a wave over her shoulder (not that she really thinks they see it) as she heads off the long way back. 

Leave it to Peter Maldonado to have a journalism kink. 

2.6

There is something Lou doesn’t like about Peter Maldonado. 

Like he doesn’t hate him or anything like that, like he’s _fine_. Lou can respect his hustle and whatever. But ever since day one there’s been something about him that’s just grated so heavily on Lou’s nerves. 

It takes him a while to figure it out, ‘cause at first Lou just thinks it’s the fact that he’s going around, snooping around DeMarcus like he was involved with literally _any_ of this Turd Burglar shit, which does totally piss him off, but he gets it on a level. He’s gotta scope out the angles and ask questions. It’s his job, even if he’s doing kind of a shit job. 

But what Lou can’t get behind even a little bit is how he treats Sam. He sees them all the time on campus, Sam trailing behind Peter like a lost puppy, usually lugging some equipment, Peter bossing him around to do this, that, and the other thing. 

‘Cause the thing is, as much as people at St. B’s like to run their mouth about Lou being DeMarcus’ personal assistant or whatever crap they’re saying this week, Lou _knows_ that it’s not like that. None of them know DeMarcus even remotely on the level that he does, doesn’t know that at least once a day D is saying something about how they’re brothers for life. And yeah, maybe Lou can admit to himself that deep down that’s not exactly the relationship he’d want DeMarcus to be comparing them to, it doesn’t make the sentiment any less real. 

So he’s less than thrilled when Peter and Sam show up to talk to him and DeMarcus...again. All thanks to that stupid rumour about the Turd Burglar card that Chloe Lyman had started spreading, Gonzo jumping in with her, probably because he still had a crush on her even though she turned him down to Homecoming back in the fall. 

But whatever, Lou doesn’t mind talking to them again if it’ll get them off of DeMarcus’ back. 

“This is a photo of the both of you guys at Skip Day,” Peter starts, showing them his phone. 

“Ohhh. Ey yo,” DeMarcus says instantly getting distracted, like this isn’t a recorded interview. “You see the video when dude threw up on Shorty Marr? What’s buddy’s name..? Andrew Lundgarden! You see that!?” 

Lou’s still palming the ball back and forth in his hands, as Sam interjects from behind the camera, “Oh, I saw that video.” 

“You saw it right!?” DeMarcus says, so visibly pleased that Lou can’t help but grin too. That’s the thing about DeMarcus, he just fucking radiates like no one else Lou has ever met, the way everything about him just draws you in. Makes you want to be part of the team, in on the joke. 

Sam nods, grinning. “Yeah that was hilarious.” 

Peter turns sharply over his shoulder, “Shh!” he says, and Sam’s entire body language changes immediately. 

“Anyways what— ” Peter tries to continue. 

“You really just shush him?” DeMarcus says, sounding about as incredulous as Lou feels. “That’s crazy, I ain’t know people shush outside of libraries

“That was disrespectful-ass motherfucker, man,” Lou says, half under his breath because he _knows_ that he shouldn’t be saying that kind of shit, especially with the camera on him. But fuck if he’s gonna let that go without saying anything. 

“I’m sorry?” Peter says, face scrunching up in genuine puzzlement. 

“Hey man, it’s okay,” Sam says. “Pete’s right, we should stay on topic.” 

“Whatever,” Lou says, hands grinding against the sides of the ball. 

“Do you wanna take a little breather?” Peter says.

“It’s fine,” Lou says, and Peter looks over his shoulder again at Sam who gives a half hearted one-shoulder shrug. Like Lou’s the fucking bad guy. Like Lou’s the one who treats his best friend like shit when there’s _clearly_ some deeper feelings going on. Fuck that.

“Actually,” Sam says. “Would it be possible for us to take a quick breather?” 

Lou realizes for the first time that Sam’s not using the smaller handheld camera but the larger, over-the-shoulder rig. 

“Is your shoulder— ?” Peter starts and Sam nods, wincing. “Yeah, sorry guys, can we take a few?” 

“Eh yo we got those icy-hot patches and ice packs and shit in the locker room,” DeMarcus says. “If that’ll help?” 

“Ummm, yeah actually, maybe?” Sam says, placing the camera on the bleachers and sitting, rubbing at his shoulder. 

“Here, I’ll come with,” Peter says, adjusting his glasses and trailing after D. 

Lou hovers awkwardly for a second, dribbling on the spot just to have something to do with his hands while Sam squints at the camera he’s put down, pressing buttons, frowning for a second before giving up on whatever he’s doing. 

“Ahh fuck it,” Sam says. “I’ll just leave it running, I don’t wanna fuck up the settings.” 

Lou’s not totally sure if Sam’s talking to him or just to himself but he stops dribbling and nods anyways. Sam starts rubbing his shoulder as he continues, “Our camerwoma— Angie? —she was supposed to be with us for at least another week but then she had a check up and the doctor was all like ‘your blood pressure is too high!’ so she had to wrap super abruptly and our friend Ming is coming to help but he’s not going to be here for a few days and it just totally messed with the schedule and I’m trying to help but I’m not really used to the big rig.” 

“Uh huh,” Lou says. 

“Just don’t take Peter too seriously, he’s all stressy today.” 

“Still shouldn’t fucking talk to you like that,” Lou says, half under his breath, something about not letting love make you blind left unsaid. 

Sam opens his mouth like he might actually respond, but then DeMarcus and Peter reemerge from wherever, Peter juggling a couple of instant ice packs and a box of the adhesive icy-hot patches. 

“Which do you want?” 

“Icy-hot,” Sam says, and he makes a grabbing gesture for the box, but Peter just pulls one out of the box, kneeling beside Sam on the bleachers. 

“Why you think we talking about Skip Day?” DeMarcus says. 

“Who knows,” Lou says, trying to push down the slowly building paranoia that they somehow know what he did at Skip Day. Which honestly he stands behind. Perry Coleman is an ego-maniac and about one sexual assault allegation away from destroying his own career, so sue him if Lou’s trying to keep that garbage fire as far away from DeMarcus as possible. 

There’s only about ten minutes left before the cheerleaders are gonna come and kick them out the gym, and Lou’s annoyed that they’re spending the last part of their free period just talking and standing around. For real how long does it take to put an icy-hot patch on?

Lou looks over to Sam and Peter, trying to watch without staring as Sam pulls the shoulder of his shirt down and Peter gently places the white square patch and smooths it down. Lou can hear DeMarcus saying something, but he’s gone all tunnel vision and instead of listening to that he’s straining to hear Sam and Peter talking. 

“Does it feel okay?” 

“Yeah it feels fine, it’s just heavy and— ”

“ —Because if that doesn’t help we could always go to Walgreens or something after this and pick up some— ”

“Hey Peter?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Shhhh!” Sam says smugly, startling Peter into silence. “Yeah not so nice.” 

“Alright, fair,” Peter says. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Sam says, so softly that Lou’s mostly just reading lips. Peter half stands, one of his knees still on the bleacher, reaching out and just barely brushing his fingertips along the edge of Sam’s jaw. 

_Oh_. 

“Hello, hello,” DeMarcus says slinging an arm over Lou’s shoulder (friendly, brotherly, platonically), “Earth to Carter, come in Carter.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m listening,” Lou says, tucking the ball under his arm as Sam hefts the camera back onto his shoulder. 

“Alright we good to go again?” Peter says. “We ready to roll?” 

“I literally do not wanna mess with the settings on this thing so I sure did just keep rolling.” 

“Jeez, okay,” Peter says and then turning back to them, “alright, let’s go back to skip day.”

2.7

“Jenna initially told us she was at her internship on the day of the Shit Launcher.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah, that was her alibi— ” 

“ —Right. But we discovered that she was actually at the school and in an accident with Lou and Demarcus, which means she was actually— ” 

“ —She was at the pep rally..”

“Exactly, but that’s not all. Sam?” 

“No, no, no. Look what we found in the front seat, uh, passenger side of her car.” 

“Oh shit, are those the t-shirts?” 

“Yeah, from the pep rally. And now, here’s my question, can you get those t-shirts anywhere? Like can you get them from the school store?” 

“No, no, no, they’re made specifically for the pep rally.” 

“So the only place those t-shirts could have come from was— ”

“ —The t-shirt cannon.” 

“So she has a strong motive, she hates the kids at St. Bernardine for the ridicule over the Kendall Jenner photo, so she would wanna shit all over them. She has access to the maltitol. She lied to us about her alibi, and we have the smoking gun t-shirt evidence in the front seat of her car.” 

“ _Shiiiit!_ ” 

“We fucking did it, we fucking solved it.” 

“Peter I fucking love you so much, babe oh my god.” 

“I fucking love _you_. You noticed the t-shirts, you’re fucking brilliant.” 

“C’mere, fuck c’mere.” 

“Ho boy, okay, you’re fully just gonna make out with Ming still rolling and everything.” 

“Fuck, sorry, okay. No we’re professionals. We’re professionals.” 

“Yeah, our bad, caught up in the moment.” 

“So what now?” 

“I think, I think I’m gonna do it man. Can I just, can I do it?” 

“Yeah, yeah, do your string thing, man...Jenna’s the Turd Burglar.” 

2.8

Ming hasn’t been to a Bar Mitzvah, or a Bat Mitzvah for that matter, in years, but it’s funny how just walking into the reception was just like walking back into grade eight. At least this time he’s in normal clothes and not the one formal outfit he’d owned. 

Even though Ming had come in pretty late on the filming to help fill in, he finds himself more excited than he expected to be back in Bellevue. Chloe and Tanner had come to pick them up at the airport, Chloe practically bowling over a luggage cart in her rush to hug all three of them. 

Ming’s following Chloe now into the venue, a bunch of preteens already milling about, as he helps them carry in their equipment. 

“Do you have _rocks_ in these cases Chloe?” Sam complains. 

“Shouldn’t you be super ripped from lugging around the cameras all the time?” Tanner asks. 

“You would think….and yet,” Sam says, hefting the black box he’s carrying onto the small makeshift stage. “Also we’re all trapped in editing hell right now, so it’s a lot of sitting in the dark and a lot less lugging stuff around.” 

“I hope this means you’re going to get super ripped,” Chloe says, giving Tanner a kiss on the cheek as she breezes past him and back towards the open doors, presumably to grab more gear. Sam raises his eyebrows at Ming silently but doesn’t say anything, possibly because Sam doesn’t exactly have the most ground to stand on when it comes to being cute in public with your partner. Ming hadn’t even been there for the majority of the filming and he’d witnessed at least a dozen times when Peter and Sam had done something just a little too romantic for a poop documentary. 

Even still, Ming is happy for Sam and Peter, and happy for Tanner and Chloe, even though he admittedly doesn’t know them nearly as well. He’d caught up on enough of the drama from Peter to know that them even talking again is fairly monumental, let alone this. 

Ming helps Tanner and Chloe finish setting up before switching over to get some footage as Chloe video calls Kevin on her iPad, and he appears in profile in front of a green screen.

“Hey, can you hear us?” Chloe asks and Kevin gives a thumbs up. “Okay we’re gonna put you…” She trails off setting the tablet into the tripod stand she’d set up. 

“How’s the service?” Tanner asks. 

“Wow it’s a big venue!” Kevin says

Tanner nods. “We’re gonna rock this!” 

“This is awesome!” Kevin says, voice coming out tinny through the speakers and Chloe and Tanner both laugh. 

“You still good to do backgrounds?” Chloe says. “Do we wanna do a test run of the green screen?” 

Ming doesn’t catch what Kevin says, his attention pulled by Sam calling for him. 

“Hey Ming?” Sam calls, from where he’s adjusting a tripod. “Are you good to walk around with the hand held?” 

“You got it,” Ming says. “I’m going to go get set up. What’s Peter doing?” 

“He’s still fiddling with that closing monologue, I keep telling him he won’t entirely know the perfect version until we have the final edit of the show, but you know Peter.” 

Ming nods heads over to one of the big round tables so he can fiddle with the camera settings. There’s silvery bouquets of balloons as centrepieces at each table, which match the silver backdrop. Ming figures it’s supposed to be some kind of futuristic space theme. Which honestly is pretty cool.

“Are you having flashbacks yet?” Peter asks Sam, drawing Ming’s attention. 

“Please, my Bar Mitzvah was _way_ cooler than this. Ezra just has a future theme, I had a _Back to the Future_ theme. Way better.” 

“That was pretty sick that your dad managed to rent that DeLorean,” Peter muses tapping Sam affectionately on the shoulder before drifting off, notebook in hand. 

The lights dim not long after that and Ming is caught up in filming, trying to get a good blend of shots of Horsehead Collective and of the partygoers’ reactions. If Ming’s being honest, he hadn’t liked their music much the first time Kevin had played him some samples at his house back in the winter, but it had started to grow on him. 

They play their own original music for about half an hour and then switch over to some Top 40, garnering a huge influx of kids from the tables onto the dancefloor. Tanner catches Ming’s eye and shrugs as he walks by, hair damp from being under the silicon mask for the last thirty minutes. “Can’t win ‘em all.” 

Ming figures that Peter wouldn’t be particularly concerned with getting footage of the rest of the party, but it’s always safer to ask, so he keeps rolling as he weaves his way around clumps of preteens over to where Sam and Peter are sitting beside the stationary camera at the bag of the venue. 

He can see Peter’s mouth moving before he can hear him, reading to Sam from the notebook that he takes down all his ideas in. He can’t make out what Peter’s saying until he’s standing pretty close, hovering off to the side with his camera as Peter continues. 

“ —Maybe the masks are a tool to survive the time. Maybe they provide a thin layer of protection. A place to grow, discover, reinvent. The important part is having people who know you without the mask...and being happy with who you are beneath it.” 

Sam is looking at Peter with that soft, slack-jawed look of awe that Ming has caught more than once, but Peter’s already rushing in to interject before Sam can say anything. “So obviously it’s only a rough draft and it can still change a lot as we get the edit done, but I just wanted to get down some thoughts early and— ” 

“No Pete, I _love_ that,” Sam interjects. “I love it.” 

It’s Peter who melts a little next. “I love you,” he says. 

“I love you too,” Sam says and Ming’s pretty sure he’s about to lean into a kiss when Sam notices him standing there awkwardly. The two of them start pulling away, but not that much. 

“Uh, hey, sorry, am I good to stop filming or do you want more footage of this?” 

Peter doesn’t even look embarrassed, reaching over to squeeze Sam’s hand, “Yeah, no, I think we’re good. I think that’s a wrap.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to youshallnotfinditso and evol_love for your insights, edits, and for letting me talk about the Ecklund siblings way too much. I love you both. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr where I'm also phonecallfromgod


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